Haven’t drummed in years but curious to hear people’s opinions on double kicks vs 2 bass drums.
My drum teacher hated 2 bass drum set ups because they’d never sound the same whereas I always found the 2nd kick on a double to be a bit laggy and because I was a bit sloppy I could never get a clean sound from doubles.
That and 2 bass drums looks 10x better imo.
Pros and cons to both methods, both your and your teacher’s points are valid.
I lack the co-ordination to play anything other than 4/4 time, but from an engineering perspective, I’d say go with whichever setup allows you to play most consistently. The higher quality source signal you can provide, the better for everyone. The rest of the band will be getting their rhythm and energy (which just needs low-end thump, it doesn’t rely too much on tone) from you. Slightly mis-matched tones on two bass drums won’t affect that much, but laggy hits from a sloppily played double pedal will.
There’s a lot that can be done on audio consoles\daws these days to help match the attack\tone\decay on two bass drums, and even help clean up the sound from using a double pedal, but there’s not a lot we can do (especially live) if you’re drumming out of time. If using 2 bass drums makes it easier to play in time compared to a double pedal, that’s a good thing.
If you’re good with both, I’d prefer the double bass drum setup as it gives you more options, and you don’t have the double-pedal issue of the skin still moving around from the first hit when you go for the second hit, which can feel\sound weird, and you also don’t have the second hit impacting the resonance from the first hit.
All that said, it’s a lot easier to transport, set up on a small stage, and mic a single bass drum and a double pedal than it is to lug around two bass drums.
Yeah I think this is part of what made the second pedal feel laggy/sloppy. It’s like the first strike got a nice crisp rebound then anything done in succession after that felt like the skin absorbed too much.
I was a bit lazy tuning but I don’t remember adding tension to the skins making a heap difference.
I’m pretty weak with a double kick and in recent years it hasn’t been all that necessary for the types of music I’ve been playing, so I haven’t even really used the slave pedal much at all. The only time I worked on it much in recent years was a band that played a lot of hair band stuff and then briefly in a Rush tribute that I didn’t go through with.
It’s been 20+ years since I’ve even seen a kit with two kick drums, let alone played one. I’m not sure I’ve actually done it since I was 13 or 14 years old.
When you’re looking for that BIG bass drum sound …
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Would be an absolute nightmare in terms stagenoise.
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Don’t reckon the roadies would be overly impressed, either!
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“Yeah I think we’re gonna need another blanket… or 12”
I went to Drumtek today… even though I’ve lived here for 11 of the last 21 years, it’s the first time I’ve been there. It’s not really close to me, but I needed to get a spare part for my Sonors and they were the only ones who could get one for me. I also bought a couple pairs of sticks as they had my personal fav (Vic Firth SD7s) which I’ve had a lot of trouble finding.
Played some e-sets as I hope to be in the market for one soon - I think the Roland VADs might be my favourite. The Yamaha with the silicon pads are amazing, but I wasn’t crazy about the cymbals or the sound bank. They only had one Alesis and it was a lower end model and wasn’t plugged in, so I wasn’t able to do a comparison - I really was hoping to play one of the Strike kits.
Also, the staff. They might just about be the nicest people I’ve ever met in retail. Such cool guys.
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